Page 53 of The Actor: Harrison

This time Leonard doesn’t say anything. He seems to think about it, but then drops the topic. I like that about him. He knows when to not press for more.

“But you could help me,” I blurt out after a long silence.

He looks at me, puzzled, his dark eyebrows knitted.

“You could help me to dig in Sienna’s past to understand why she’s so reluctant about my help. So I know how I can help her,” I explain to clear his confusion.

His serious expression turns into a scowl. “You can’t violate someone’s privacy like that!” he scolds.

I roll my eyes. “I’m not asking you to dig up her Social Security number or her private emails. I’m just asking you to help with some research online. Public records, not the dark web or anything.”

“You have no idea what the dark web is, do you?”

I shrug.

“Besides, it’s not like in the movies, where you can magically find an explanation for your existential crisis. There are no videos to dig up or secret documents to uncover that will miraculously answer your questions. It doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m asking you for help with a Google search, not to involve the FBI for a background check on her!” I point out.

“You know how a computer works, why do you want to drag me into this mess? If she discovers I helped you she’ll be pissed with me too,” he complains, but I can see he’s giving in.

***

I’ve been in Leonard’s home I don’t know how many times, but I’ve never been in his private office. This place is not what I expected from him. I imagined a room full of computers and everything tech, not classic furniture and a desk with two big, curved monitors and a laptop.

“That’s it? This is your office?” I blurt out.

He turns around frowning. “How should it be?”

“I don’t know. I expected something with all those closet-size computers with no monitors and blinking lights.” I sit in a chair he dragged behind his desk next to his.

He chuckles. “A server? Why should I keep something like that in my house?”

“I don’t know, you’re the tech guy. I don’t know how you use it.”

“You know about the cloud and everything that’s going on right now on the web, right? We’re not in the nineties. I don’t need to have a server. Hell, I don’t even have them for my company, I use a third-party data center to do basically everything.”

“Really? You trust them with the security?” I thought someone like him would have kept everything where he can have total control. This is the guy who doesn’t want to use smart appliances because they have security problems.

“Believe me, if the governments trusts a third party to store their data, my company can too,” he mumbles.

I don’t ask for further explanation about how the security of our country is in someone’s non-military hands, but this is a wild concept to me. Don’t they watch movies where the guy blows up entire cities? How difficult is it to set ablaze a data center, or worse, sneak in and steal the data?

I sip the beer I stole from his fridge and stare at the computer while he inputs the password and everything lights up. There’s a pale blue screen with one single folder on it. A series of codes identify the folder and everything else.

“You know this could be the computer of a serial killer, right?” I frown and he shakes his head like he doesn’t even know how to answer that.

“I like order. I hate a desktop full of useless icons that make you waste an insane amount of time.”

“I guess you don’t have any games on this, do you?” I grin when he looks at me like I’m an annoying bug.

“So, where do we start?”

Leonard clicks on something I can’t see a couple of times and a search bar pops up. It’s definitely not Google. I want to laugh. That’s probably way too mainstream for him.

“We start by searching her name.” He types into the search bar and a second later the pages populate with links and descriptions.

The page is elegant and very well organized, even for my inexperienced eyes.

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